


My Hungry Fatigue

by reserve



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: Bad BDSM Etiquette, First Time, Gavin Belson is Not Nice, Happy Ending, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Pining, Under-negotiated Kink, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-11 22:27:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11723877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reserve/pseuds/reserve
Summary: He imagines it could be worse. At least he's not in a cult.Not anymore.





	My Hungry Fatigue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yeats](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeats/gifts).



> Thank you to the absurd number of people who listened to me whine about this fic and offered encouragement. Special thanks to [robokittens](http://archiveofourown.org/users/robokittens), [eralkfang](http://archiveofourown.org/users/eralkfang), and [th_esaurus](http://archiveofourown.org/users/th_esaurus) (who doesn't even go here).
> 
> It's possible this timeline is kind of wonky, but it's not like I'm writing about WW2 and misdated the Battle of the Bulge (Dec 16, 1944 – Jan 25, 1945) or whatever. So cut a girl some slack.
> 
> Edited to say that I should have, from the outset, gifted this story to the incredible [yeats](http://archiveofourown.org/users/yeats), from whom many of the best ideas in it came. Sorry, bro. I am _le worst_.

_What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked_  
_down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache self-conscious_  
_looking at the full moon._

 _In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images,_  
_I went to the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations._

“[A Supermarket in California](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47660/a-supermarket-in-california),” Allen Ginsberg

 

Donald Dunn leaves Nancy Pelosi’s staff with a stellar recommendation from the congresswoman herself, a professional wardrobe, and budding confidence.

He leaves for Hooli because of the promised salary, and if he’s honest, the prestige. He has more than the average skillset expected from a type-a liberal arts graduate and former congressional aide. He is also scrappy, a self-starter, and prepared to put his head down and do what needs to get done. He also doesn't question why the Hooli application requires a photograph before his initial interview.

Then he meets Gavin Belson for the third time during his first week and all that new-found confidence goes directly out the thick glass window inside Gavin’s office. Donald thinks it lands somewhere near the Japanese rock garden.

From behind his desk, feet up on the table, Gavin regards him with cool interest that butts up hard against predatory.

 _Danger, Will Robinson_! thinks Donald.

Gavin steeples his fingers. “When the door is closed it’s either sir or daddy. One gets you a reward, the other gets you very little, and both will get you everywhere.” He smiles without teeth. “Make your choice. And think hard about it.”

For the umpteenth time, Donald wonders how he keeps getting himself into situations like this.

“Both, sir,” he says, quickly calculating the odds of choosing wrong. And: “thank you…daddy.”

“That's good. You’re a very good boy, Jared.”

Gavin is shorter than him but he's stronger. He has a youthful haleness to him. A shark-like quality that reminds Jared of the older leather daddy who took a shine to him back when he worked at the Wicca shop in New Orleans. At least then he had the Coven to help him keep his distance. Now, it's just him and Gavin, and Gavin has gone and given him a new name and a choice.

Gavin has rechristened him. And apparently decided to own him.

It's not exactly what he expected from Silicon Valley, but then again, these fertile hills seem to breed eccentricity. The Bay Area birthed L. Ron Hubbard, after all, so—he imagines it could be worse. At least he's not in a cult.

Not anymore.

“Get daddy’s coffee and the newest issue of _WIRED_ ,” says Gavin.

Jared _née_ Donald does as he's told.

—

For longer than he'd care to admit, he believed it was Gavin who made him a real boy. But that's because he didn't know what it felt like to have his strings cut.

Sometimes he wishes he didn't. Sometimes he doesn't know if they really are.

—

“You’re very tall,” Gavin says to him. “That wasn’t exactly apparent in your photograph. But we can work with it.”

Jared keeps his gaze down and says nothing: respectful, obedient.

“Luckily, this is a very _large_ desk, with ample space beneath it.” Gavin gestures at his office furniture with an expansive motion. Look at all I have, look at all I’ve conquered. His eyes convey that Jared is another spoil of war. “So,” he says. “Go on and get comfy.”

It isn’t until Gavin pulls out his big CEO desk chair and points, that it dawns on Jared what, exactly, he’s asking for.

He fits, thank the Lord, he fits. Contorted, and slightly uncomfortable but he’s been in worse positions and this certainly isn’t going to kill him. _I might choke to death_ , Jared concedes, bobbing his head dutifully, but Gavin has one shiny leather dress shoe off, and his bare foot, toes flexing, is pressed firmly against Jared’s groin, and really, there are worse ways to die.

“Tell Azure they can take their server space and go fuck themselves with it, I don’t give a shit if they’ll lower the cost by 25%. This is _Hooli_ , for fuck’s sake, not some rinky-dink start-up.” Gavin, utterly composed and on a conference call, threads his fingers through Jared’s hair and pushes him down further.

 _This isn’t even the weirdest day of my life_ , Jared thinks.

—

All of his childhood fantasies were escapist. He ran away with wolves, he ran away with the circus, he ran away with the dragon because the idea of someone saving him was too outlandish for even his well-developed imagination. And anyway, Donald thought the dragon might not be all bad. Dragons were strong, fierce, protective of the things they possessed. At that point his life was so colored by misery that he would have relished being kidnapped.

All things considered, he probably wasn't thinking clearly.

It stuck with him, though. It really did. He imagined being swept off his feet (and maybe eaten later) by a winged beast who stole him away from:

The gang of cutthroat neighbor boys and half-cousins who beat the heck out of him because he liked to part his hair neatly to the side. Or the man down the hill who said _he_ liked the way Donald’s hair was parted neatly to the side, and _he_ liked Donald’s tidy sweaters, and _he_ liked Donald’s pretty, pale skin.

 _Oh god,_ Donald had wondered, _where's the dragon_.

—

They are in Gavin Belson’s master bedroom. The décor has the same overwrought baroque quality that the rest of his home does, like someone told him what being rich looked like and he ran with it. Didn't pause to ask any questions.

 _Tacky_ , someone who isn't him scoffs inside Jared’s head.

Most of the room is taken up by a massive Duxiana California king. It's so soft, it's like laying on a cloud. And the sheets are so soft. Egyptian cotton, 800 thread count, silk trim. Jared is perched on the edge, sliding a hand over the fabric. He feels woozy because he's three glasses of wine in and he still can't hold his drink. Even at 24.

 _Not good, not good, not good_ , he thinks.

Gavin is standing in the ensuite, illuminated by soft lighting. If there were cupids who were also demons they would look like he does.

 _It's the hair_ , Jared thinks.

Gavin is holding something up for him to see. Gauzy pink fabric, a chemise maybe. A pair of underwear that look too flimsy to wear without tearing. It all looks expensive.

“It doesn't matter if you like them,” is what he says. Smirking. Cherubic cheeks, demonic eyebrows. “It only matters if I like _you_ in them.”

“Yes, sir,” says Jared. He swallows. His mouth is dry and sour tasting. “That makes sense.”

“Come here and see if everything fits. Put on a show for me.”

Not long after he puts on the panties and chemise does Jared realize that it doesn't matter if they fit, because Gavin has pushed the panties to the side, and now they _are_ slightly torn, and Jared's face-down getting fucked on the softest sheets his skin has ever touched. Gavin is still wearing his dress shirt and his chest feels both luxurious and unyielding against Jared’s back. He's getting fucked, hard, and he's holding onto the mattress like a liferaft. The chemise is riding up his stomach, the panties are pinching at him, and he's profoundly, uncomfortably hard. And waiting, like a good boy (because he is a good boy), for Gavin to let him touch himself. He's waiting because Gavin says when he’s allowed to come.

Gavin tried to have him microchipped like a pet shih tzu and that's the only time Jared has put his foot down since he started at Hooli. It earned him a backhand.

Sometimes Gavin refers to his anus as his “boy pussy,” which Jared thinks is terribly fresh. It makes him hard anyway. Or maybe being wanted makes him hard. Or maybe being pushed down and held down by his forearms makes him hard, and it could be anyone doing it so long as he’s told to wait, to be good, to work for it.

He's dying to touch himself. The panties are rubbing against him in a way that feels like torture. He's worried he's going to come on himself before Gavin says he can. That won’t go well for him. As it turns out, that's what Gavin wants.

“You're going to come on my dick,” Gavin tells him, grinding it out between his teeth. “Don't let me see your hands move. Don't fucking move them. I only picked you because you look like the kind of whore who needs to get fucked into the mattress. Is that the kind of whore you are?”

“Oh Lord,” Jared says, before he literally bites the sheets to shut himself up. He feels, gosh, he feels like he's coming apart. Like he really is going to soil himself the way Gavin wants.

“I can't hear you.”

“I'm that kind of whore,” he gasps.

“And are you grateful daddy picked you? Do you know how many people could be in your place?”

“So. So grateful. Daddy.

“Fuck yes, you are,” Gavin says, gripping at his hips in a way that will leave fingerprint shaped bruises. That _has_ left fingerprint shaped bruises. “Come for me, baby. Come on. Let me feel you come on my dick.” He takes the time to slap Jared’s ass, to snap the elastic panty line against his sensitive skin. Then he reaches down, and pulls Jared’s hair so hard Jared’s vision goes white and he comes. So odd. Like it was wrenched out from somewhere inside him he didn't know existed.

“My little bitch,” Gavin pants. “So good for me.” Then he pulls out to ruin the panties even further.

Jared feels a little bad for them. It's not like they asked for this life. He wonders again if there was something wrong with his Hooli application? Like maybe he clicked a checkbox without reading the fine print.

 _That's very unlike you, Jared_ , he thinks.

“I'm going to put these in your mouth,” Gavin says. “Clean them up.”

—

He meets Richard Hendricks.

In his weaker moments, Jared might say it was love at first sight, but he tries not to be _too_ hopelessly romantic about things.

He meets Richard Hendricks, and—

There are oppositional forces in this world: real, scientific ones, and imagined, emotional ones. He thinks about signs and their meanings, he thinks about Roland Barthes, fate, false causalities, Walt Whitman, and being _saved_.

How _embarrassing_ , Jared thinks. His stomach flips. He's pretty sure Richard is throwing up in the bathroom.

—

_And if you could ever use someone with my business development skill set, I would love to be a part of this._

And so he is.

—

Gavin Belson sends a lot of text messages. But first he hurls a potted succulent at Jared’s head.

Then he calls him a whore, and not in a good way.

Jared hands in his badge, and he's off the Hooli campus for forty-five minutes, give or take, before the text messages start. Meticulously, he deletes every single one.

He doesn't respond. He doesn't want to encourage Gavin. He knows better than to dangle chum in front of a shark. A shark who has taken to unpredictably changing his hunting tactics, seesawing from pleading to threatening faster than most people can get a text out in the first place. He imagines Gavin dictating to whichever poor soul replaced him and it makes him shudder.

Later, at the supermarket, he puts bananas and a bright red bundle of vine-ripened tomatoes into his basket. He feels his phone buzz in his trouser pocket: once, twice, thrice. Not exactly Morse code for ‘fuck you,’ but. He thinks it might have been prudent to quit _after_ he knew for certain that Pied Piper would hire him. That Richard Hendricks would hire him. A staccato series of buzzes and he pulls out his cell phone, paused beside the avocados. He reads:

_You’ll regret this. Just wait._

and:

_That sad, pathetic little prick can't give you half of what you need. And you know it._

and:

_It's not very nice of you to ignore me, baby._

and:

_I know this is probably weird, but I need help writing a business plan._

_This is Richard. By the way._

_From Pied Piper._

He makes some kind of bizarre bird-like yawp, right there in the produce aisle. A woman tugs her daughter away from him, like maybe he's about to explode. He feels like he might.

“Sorry, sorry,” Jared says, mostly to the veggies.

His phone rings.

—

Pied Piper is a mess, but Jared loves it. He loves Pied Piper so much his heart feels constricted by an overabundance of joy for the first six months he works with Richard and the guys, and even Erlich.

He _loves_ it.

—

Jared goes to bed each night feeling more free then he has in years. The bruises on his hips fade. The bruises on his throat fade. He drinks chamomile tea in the evenings just because he likes the taste of it. He catches up on _New Yorker_ back issues. He even watches Buffy reruns. Pied Piper keeps him busy, but he has _lebensraum_ now, so to speak. He could spread his wings if he wanted to.

He could _date_ if he wanted to.

Gavin had rules. That's the best way for Jared to think about it because he likes rules, and if he's honest, he likes following them. He likes systems and protocol. Decorum. But you can't change people, no matter how badly you may wish to. You can only take the shape of what they want. And—

Richard can barely get a sentence past his lips without insulting someone or himself; Jared once saw Gavin _literally_ kick a puppy. He has no idea what's wrong with him, but when he looks at the patchwork quilt of his desires it feels like there's an ouroboros caught in his chest, an unending cycle of reprehensible people that he cannot keep himself away from. That keep finding him. That he keeps finding. It's a Lacanian nightmare.

Richard isn't Gavin. But sometimes—

Sometimes he wakes up from the kind of dream he forgot he could have, that the boys’ home all but bred out of him. He wakes up and his hands are shaking, his eyes and nightclothes are damp. He feels as though a tsunami has crashed over him, and left him half-drowned, weak-limbed. He's not blind to his attraction, he's just not bold with it. When he catches himself lingering at the edge of a room, watching Richard write code, following the way his thin, delicate looking hands move over the keys, he knows to walk away. He doesn't want to see whatever Gavin has and is, in Richard; but just _wanting_ Richard makes him sure it's there. Maybe in another format, maybe a different OS, but certainly there: a variety of ruthlessness that threads itself through every entanglement he's ever found himself in.

He can't escape.

Jared looks around the garage. He looks at the mess he's made of his sheets. He thinks about dream Richard, calling him over, smirking at him, finding the confidence to be _mean_. It chills him.

He doesn't want to go anywhere.

—

 _Assuming Gavin was done with you was probably your first mistake_ , Jared thinks.

—

It is early afternoon and he's going through the files Hooli sent over, really combing through them with the deft eye that would have gotten him easily into and through law school if he'd wanted that. He’s looking for any mention of his name that could reveal the— _delicate_ nature of his relationship with Gavin Belson. Information that is, truly, the last thing on this plane of existence that he would ever want Richard to see.

Then Richard clears his throat from over at the kitchen table, and puts down his energy drink. “Ummm,” he says, trailing off pitched high.

Jared’s heart rate takes off at a gallop

“Ron was wondering, why Gavin would name you in the lawsuit. I told him I'd ask.” Richard taps his pencil on a stack of legal documents. “It's weird, right? I mean, it's not like he— _owned_ you. Or like, like I fucking _stole_ you from him or something.”

“It _is_ strange,” Jared says, lying. “Although, I suppose I didn't give the appropriate two weeks notice.”

Richard half-shrugs, one shoulder twitching up just slightly. It makes his shirt pull and shift at the neckline. Jared breathes out.

“Seems pretty fucked up,” Richard says. He tries to sip his drink. Jared can see the disappointment on his face when he finds it empty. “Hey, can you grab me another Monster,” he asks, so easy. “And come look this retainer over?”

“Of course.” Jared smiles. He always does.

—

“‘I'm going to find you, bend you over your desk, and fuck you so hard your front teeth break—’ he actually said that. Can you believe he actually fucking said that?” Richard frowns dramatically. He shakes his head a few times. He’s pacing in the living room, agitated, hands flailing. “What a fucking. Clown, am I right?”

“Well, yes,” Jared says, tentative, fidgeting, thinking about being bent over Gavin’s desk and fucked until one of his teeth actually _did_ chip, caught right on the edge of a paperweight. Gavin paid for his veneers.

“But Richard,” he tries, stifling a disconcerting internal heat, “that _is_ the kind of thing—”

Richard wrinkles his nose. “Are you telling me—that Gavin Belson is _really_ going to come here, a-and bend me over my desk, and fuck me?”

“No. No, of course not. I only meant to say, that you shouldn't take threats from him lightly. I would know.”

“ _Oh-_ kay, Jared.” Richard rolls his eyes. “Calm down.”

—

 _Can I see you?_ he writes. Then sends. Then deletes.

_My office. 11PM. Security is expecting you._

—

Gavin Belson wearing a soft sweater, his feet bare, his hair falling forward across his forehead. Young looking. Color in his cheeks. Gavin saying, “stay the night, there’s extra clothing in the guest room. Can’t have my superstar be tired for the big conference/board meeting/product launch. Who'd take care of me?”

That handsome shark smile.

These are the kinds of visuals Jared has worked hard to forget, to purge.

That’s the thing about Gavin, he realizes now: when he wanted to, he could be as free with praise as he was cruelty. Jared also knows that he’s been starving for it his whole life. Picking up crumbs. Every kindness hoarded, confused for a lifeline. Every vicious act kept like a gift he deserved.

Gavin greets him with a cut crystal glass of Glenlivet in hand. He ushers Jared into his office like they’re old friends reuniting for the first time in years. The campus is dark, each floor lit only by blinking lights on monitors and computer towers. The gauzy light in Gavin’s own office feels particularly surreal. Of course the overheads above his artwork are turned on.

 _Oh no,_ Jared thinks. _It’s a seduction._

“You look well,” Gavin tells him. “Have a seat.” He leans against the edge of his desk and surveys the view. Behind him, the the Hooli parking lot stretches out for yards and yards. He’s lit up from behind by the solar-powered street lamps.

“Thank you,” Jared says, he touches his collar. A little flattered.

“I guess you’re not starving to death, in that hovel.”

“No, I’m getting by just fine.”

“Good, that’s good to hear. So—” Gavin comes over to him, stalks over, his shoulders held low. He crouches down at Jared’s feet, sets his scotch down on the side table. “You set this meeting.” His hands land on Jared’s knees. His fingers are so thick, memorable. “What do you want?”

“Well, I—”

“I’ve missed you,” Gavin says, sliding his hands up Jared’s thighs, thumbs pressing into the inseams on his khakis. “Did you miss me?” Fingers going for Jared’s belt buckle, for his flies.

 _‘Gavin_ ,” he says, strained, swallowing hard. “This really isn’t why I came here.”

“Shhh, shhhh. Don’t ruin the celebration.”

“What are you celebrating?” Jared asks, in spite of himself. Gavin takes him in hand. It only takes a few short strokes before he’s hard, fully hard, and miserable.

 _Here we go again_ , he thinks.

Gavin hums. He is literally about to swallow Jared’s erect penis when he says, “just how hard Pied Piper is going to get fucked in court.” And then he does feed Jared’s erection into his mouth.

Jared feels himself bump against the back of Gavin’s throat. He feels Gavin swallow. He grips the chair’s leather arms. Gavin never did this, before, this was the kind of thing that _he_ did, at Gavin’s behest. Whenever and wherever he was told.

Gavin’s hands hold him down by his thighs, and Jared hopes, prays, through the haze of shocking arousal, that Gavin had the good sense to turn off the security cameras in his office like he used to. Even on his knees, Gavin Belson manages to come across as wolfish. He looks up at Jared right before Jared spills into his mouth, like somehow he knew exactly when to make eye contact, and his eyes are so knowing and cruel that Jared squeezes his own shut as he comes.

He’s barely caught his breath before Gavin is standing, scotch back in his hand.

“Did he send you here?’

“Richard?” Jared asks, genuinely surprised. He leans back and away in the armchair. Tucks himself hastily into his boxers, zips his pants. “Of course not. He doesn’t—”

“He doesn’t know you’re here?” Gavin sounds delighted. On the verge of laughter. His mouth looks just a little used. “Oh Jared, Jared, Jared.” He shakes his head. “What is this?”

“You said.” Jared sniffs and lifts his chin. “You said you were going to come and find him, fuck him over his desk. I just thought—”

“You thought I might actually _do_ _it_.” Now he does laugh. “I love this.”

“Well—”

“Did you come to offer yourself in his place? Like a maiden sacrifice?” Gavin tilts his head, considering, thoughtful. “Is that what you’re here for?”

“He’s my CEO, and—”

“He’s my CEO,” Gavin mimics, high-pitched. “Sorry, please go on.”

Jared steels himself. He only came here for one reason—two, maybe, but—mostly one. “I just wanted to be certain that you were only speaking in idle threats. That’s all. It’s due diligence.”

“Let me ask you something: hypothetically, what if I were to drop the suit? What if Richard-fucking-Hendricks could have his precious Pied Piper in return for one thing.”

“One thing?”

“Come back. Come back to Hooli, and we’ll forget about the whole awful business. Like it never happened. No seizure of intellectual property, no more bad guy Gavin Belson. All you need to do is leave, and come back.”

“I can’t do that,” Jared says. “I could _never_ do that.”

“Well.” Gavin sips his scotch. Jared can see him swish it around in his mouth. He used to do the same thing, after. But usually with apple juice.”I suggest you get the fuck out then.”

“Gavin—”

“Get the fuck out,” Gavin says. He points at the massive glass doors with his scotch and Jared—

Jared goes.

—

He pulls over on 101 and cries for awhile. He considers heading back to the house, packing up his things, leaving. It wouldn’t be the first time he ran away in the night. That’s how he wound up in New Orleans. It wouldn’t be the first time someone made it apparent just how little control he has.

 _Where_ is _the dragon_ , Jared wonders. _Maybe there isn’t one._

He’d meant what he said: he could never go back to Hooli, or leave Richard. He has a sixth sense about things sometimes, or it could just be an overabundance of empathy, but—he really believes that these are actually the Halcyon days for Pied Piper, despite the lawsuit and Gavin and the funding issues, and the rats in the garage. And not actually being able to move into the guesthouse next door because there wasn’t any running water and it seemed so far…

He just has the sense that _these_ are their “gather ye rosebuds while ye may” days, and whenever success gets too close Jared feels them start to slip away.

It begins to rain, a rarity. He gets back on the road. He gets back to the house and finds everyone around the kitchen table. He plugs in his phone, he showers: perfunctory but fastidious. He joins them.

—

Jared still feels dirty in the morning.

He always felt dirty—when Gavin was done with him. Sometimes he liked it, sometimes it felt good to wake up in his condo with a satisfying ache from Gavin’s ministrations the night before. _Glasshole no more_! he always thought. And—it feels terrible to admit, but—he would look at himself in the mirror above his bathroom sink, count the bruises like flowers from suitors. The ones on his wrists looked like bracelets, that’s how pale he was. How pale he is. He liked seeing tangible signs of someone else’s want of him. A sore jaw made him feel useful.

The previous night left no bruises, but if Gavin’s endgame was to put himself in mind then he succeeded. Jared feels like he needs to shower again. He showers again.

 _Being an early riser is a blessing_ , he thinks.

He soaps savagely between his legs. Eventually, a little bit raw but fully clothed, he goes to make a cup of coffee. One by one the guys filter into the kitchen, blearily pour cups for themselves, eat yogurt, cook eggs.

 _I’m in exactly the right place_ , he thinks.

He starts to feel normal again once they’re all around the kitchen table, going through more files. The group effort makes him feel like he’s really part of something. Pied Piper makes him feel like he's part of something.

“I can’t believe how many of Richard’s banal e-mails I’ve had to read,” says Gilfoyle.

Jared smiles to himself. “I’m sure they’re not all bad.”

“Listen to this—”

Gilfoyle holds up a sheet of paper, is about to launch into a reading when Richard stomps into the kitchen. He’s— _fuming_. That much is obvious. Jared immediately feels his insides curdle. It's such a familiar sensation, recognizing the exact moment when you’re in for it, when there's no way out.

Richard holds up his phone. He has that wild look he gets sometimes, half-manic half-miserable. _Everyone_ is watching, even Jin Yiang. Jared wants to crawl into a hole.

“ _Why_ —” Richard says, taking a huge, shaky breath, “were you in the middle of the God damn Hooli campus last night, Jared? What in the ever loving _fuck_ could you have possibly been doing there?”

Jared feels ill, nauseous. _Fucking_ , he thinks, even though technically that’s not true. He says: “Richard, you went through my phone?”

“I—yes. But, only because. Pied Piper and proprietary. And—” he's seething. “How do we know you're not some kind of. Corporate spy, huh? How do we know.”

“Because I would never?” Jared’s forehead scrunches up. “I would never do that to you.”

“Yeah Richard, what the fuck,” injects Dinesh. “What are you? Like Gavin Belson light? Are you going to go through _all_ our phones?”

“You won't be able to get into mine,” adds Gilfoyle.

“What. No—that's not.” Richard rubs a hand over his face. “Maybe we should talk alone,” he says, giving Jared a meaningful look.

“Young Jared is the soul of honesty,” says Erlich, coming in from the living room, shrouded in a cloud of smoke and carrying his bubbler. “He's more loyal than the most loyal of hounds. A prince among men.”

“Great, another country heard from,” Richard groans. “Can we just talk? I won't yell.” He looks pleadingly at Jared, but it's still not _nice_.

“Sure, Richard. We can talk.”

“Good. Okay. Great. Thanks a lot everyone. Fuck you very much, okay?”

—

Richards asks what he was doing, and because they are behind closed doors, and because he cannot bear the look of hurt on Richard’s face, and because he could never lie worth a lick anyway, he tells the truth.

“I guess the lawsuit stuff makes more sense now,” Richard says, dazed. “That's. God, that's a lot. You should probably leave me alone. For a while.”

“Right, of course,” Jared responds, fumbling over himself to get out of Richard’s bedroom as quickly as he can.

 _God, Donald_ , he thinks, regressive and pained. _How do you manage to muck up_ everything _?_

—

Jared comes home late, in through the back door with the express purpose of avoiding Richard, something he _never_ imagined doing, or having to do, only to find Richard actually in the garage, sitting on Jared’s ratty armchair, and apparently waiting in the dark. The only light is from the servers, and the garage air feels hot and dry. It tastes stale when Jared takes a slow, full breath to calm himself down.

“Oh, hello Richard,” he says, ever chipper. He puts down his messenger bag, gingerly settles himself on the edge of the bed, no sudden movements. He affects nonchalance, folds his hands in his lap, non-threatening. “What can I do you for?”

The silence lasts too long. Klaxons go off in Jared’s head.

“How did he fuck you?” Richard asks, cutting through the sirens, surprisingly steady, quiet and cool. “Did you ask for it?” He glances up at the ceiling, his mouth twisting into a funny shape. “Did you _beg_ for it? Because honestly, Jared, you seem like the type to beg. Like when it really comes down to it.”

“Richard, I—”

“Answer the question.”

“I….” Jared looks down. He feels like he may cry, like crying is shockingly close to being on order. He wonders, traitorously, if Richard would like that. “Sometimes,” he concedes to his hands.

“You begged. ‘Sometimes.’ That’s not a very specific answer for a very specific person. You probably—you probably journaled about every single time Gavin-fucking-Belson bent you over some shiny Hooli desk. And all you can give me is ‘sometimes’?”

Jared can feel the air quotes being flung at him. “When he wanted me to, I begged. And, I may have asked. At times.”

“To get fucked. And what else?”

He flushes with heat, it burns all along his cheekbones, under his eyes. He feels another bout of haphazard panic rising. He feels ashamed and aroused and ashamed for being aroused, and he has been cursed with honesty. It haunts him. But—he’s ashamed that it was Gavin, not of what he likes.

He says, “I asked to—crawl sometimes, or be held down, hurt. Or, I don’t know…”

“You do know.”

“Richard, I know you're under a lot of pressure right now but _please_. Is this necessary?”

“Ye-yes it is. It is really fucking necessary. How else—how can I know.”

“Know what?”

“How can I know that you won’t.” Richard makes a low, frustrated sound in the back of his throat, like he’s about to get up and kick a door in. “That you won’t go back to him. For this? Jesus, Jared, so fucking—unscrupulous.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Gavin Belson is th-the _enemy_. He is _suing_ us. And he has tried to fuck us, countless times, with frankly alarming persistence. And here _you_ go—actually _letting_ him fuck you. Like, willingly. Like ‘oh fuck me harder Gavin Belson.’” Richard laughs, high-pitched and mean, and throws up his hands. He’s been speaking so fast he barely had time to stutter.

 _Don’t think longingly of his kinder raves_ , Jared admonishes himself. But he does love when Richard gets going. He loves to watch him surge. _Put all that away,_ he thinks. He tries to compose himself.

“Last night wasn’t—”

“Don’t, Jared. Just don’t.” Richard holds up a hand to stay him. He closes his eyes. “Do you understand, that Gavin is trying to take— _all_ of this away from me? Everything I’ve built? That we are this close to having to pack up and start the fuck over with _nothing_?”

“I do, Richard. Really, I do. And—” He gets to his knees, he crawls. He watches Richard watch him through narrowed eyes. “And it won’t happen. You’ll see.” He puts his head down, ever so slowly, on Richard’s skinny, jean-covered knee. The fabric is soft against his cheek, he can smell the ground from here. It’s almost like he can feel all of the nervous tension caught up in Richard’s muscles, waiting to strike out into an inelegant gesture, or a rapid tapping motion, or—

Richard touches his hair. Slides his fingers through it. His thumb circles over Jared’s scalp. One of his slender, soft fingers skirts along the shell of his ear. He can feel Richard breathing. He lets himself breathe too. He goes away, for just a moment.

“I should have asked,” Richard says, rueful. “Did you like it?”

“Hmmm?”

“ _Do_ you like it?” Richard amends. His hand is still a warm, grounding weight on Jared’s head. Softly pawing at him.

“It could have been better,” Jared whispers. His voice sounds weak, muffled, like it’s coming out of him from a distance, from somewhere else.

“How? I don’t know how these things work. How anything like that works.”

 _There has never been a dragon_ , Jared thinks.

“It could be with someone I care about.” He rubs his cheek against Richard’s knee. Hopes _maybe, just maybe._

 _“Oh.”_ Richard’s hand stills on his head. His fingers seize up for just a second, catching on strands of hair. He tugs, not too hard. But Jared feels it through the very layers of his soul. Fate, sweet fate.

He can't help but whimper. It feels so _right_.

“Holy shit,” Richard breathes out, then again, louder. He moves, and it jolts Jared back into the garage. He sits up. Richard is wringing his hands. Biting at his mouth. The blessed, unexpected calm just _evaporated_. “I have to go,” he says. “Just, go to sleep. Alright? I’m not mad.”

“Richard?”

“I know you didn’t mean. I know it wasn’t about us—I mean, Pied Piper. Like, that us, not _us_.” He’s halfway out the door and gesturing between them. “Uh, good night.”

“Okay,” Jared says, from the floor. “Good night.”

—

Gavin texts: _can we talk?_

Jared ignores him.

—

There’s this hazy memory he has, of AP world history at one high school or another. Something about the language surrounding hinge moments that stayed with him. Jared remembers learning about World War I, the way the phrase “Balkan powder keg” always stood out, like someone was just waiting for the Archduke to be murdered, preparing the matches, laying down the fuses with intent. Ready to make it all explode, ready to welcome consequence.

He’s never been like that.

For Richard he wants to be.

—

 _Can we talk?_   Richard texts from across the kitchen table.

 _Of course,_ he sends back.

Richard glances up at from him behind his computer screen. He worries at his lower lip. He looks down. Jared can hear him typing.

 _My room in ten_.

Jared’s palms begin to sweat. He watches Richard get up first and act like he's headed to shower. Like he needs to pull a fast one on the guys when Dinesh and Gilfoyle hardly pause in their argument (Chobani vs Fage) to notice him leaving.

Eventually Jared follows him, and he closes the door to Richard’s bedroom _so_ quietly.

“You should, uh, sit,” Richard says. Still standing. He motions to his desk chair. “Do you want a water or—”

“Richard?” Jared sits. Careful not to hit his head on the upper bunk. Before him, Richard starts to pace. It’s a familiar sight, so familiar that it makes his chest hurt. He wonders, if maybe, he should have printed out his resignation letter.

Richard inhales noisily and rubs the heels of his hands over his eyes, drags them down his cheeks. He looks—t _ired,_ stressed out. The lawsuit is taking its toll and Jared hates that he’s contributed to Richard’s unrest. He _hates_ it. He’s contemplating harakiri when Richard starts talking.

“Listen—” he flattens his mouth into a line.

 _You’ve had a good run_ , thinks Jared.

“Listen, I can’t pretend to fully ‘get it,’ and I don’t—I don’t really.” A stilted breath. “I don't have. You know, a lot of experience with any of that, as you can imagine. I mean,” he shakes his head. “The last time someone so much as _looked_ at my dick it was probably 2010. So all the other stuff—” Richard gestures vaguely and trails off.

“The other stuff?”

“The, uh, crawling? And. I pulled your hair—like, a little. And you—”

“I liked it.”

“ _Yeah_ ,” Richard exhales.

 _Okay,_ thinks Jared. _Okay-okay okay._ He looks down at his hands, the way they’re curled in his lap like strange, pale birds. Useless at the ends of his cuffs. He could use them. Thrust himself upward, go to Richard, reel him in. Instead, he grips the chair arms. He swallows his fear just like he’s used to.

“Did _you_ like it?” he asks, oh-so-slowly.

“I—” Richard fiddles with his hoodie strings, laughs a little breathlessly. “I was _so_ angry. God, just so fucking angry.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No. No, it’s not. I mean, okay, it’s kinda your fault but. Jared.”

The last thing, the last thing on this blessed earth that Jared expects is for _Richard_ to get to his knees. For _Richard_ to reach for his hands, and hold them together over Jared’s lap. Clasped between his two.

“It wasn't enough to just hear it,” Richard says, looking directly at him. “What you did. What you, uh, like.”

 _Here goes everything_ , Jared thinks. He says, “you want to know….intimately?”

Richard nods.

“We could watch—”

Jared doesn’t get to finish. It is through blind luck alone, through the grace of the Universe, the Goddess, whomever, that they don’t tip over the desk chair entirely and crack their skulls open when Richard scrambles into his lap, and pushes their mouths together.

He learns very quickly learns that Richard Hendricks doesn't kiss the way he expected.

Maybe he thought it would be messier, less focused, more tongue than not. When Jared allowed himself (lights off, face down, unable to touch himself but instead finding pleasure in the drag of his mattress—old habits die hard), he certainly didn't imagine Richard kissing so purposefully, concentrating, one hand in Jared’s hair, the other cupping his jaw. He (rutting helplessly) didn't imagine the methodical exploration of his teeth, the sick-tingly-elated feeling in his stomach from sharing saliva with someone new.

And he is wildly, pleasantly surprised when Richard slips his tongue deep into his mouth, reaching, mouths sliding together but open wide, nearly caught at the corners. It makes his eyes water.

 _Gosh_ , Jared thinks, moaning, the most surprising thing of all is the way Richard’s thumb bears down on him at the curve where jaw-meets-neck, forefinger tucked under his chin, pressing into his throat, holding him in place.

 _This will work,_ Jared thinks.

"I want to take every last bit of Gavin fucking Belson out of you,” Richard says, panting, very close. “Tell me how to do that.” He looks fierce, determined. And because Jared is too stunned to reply, too love dumb, Richard’s face falls and he hedges. “Do you _want_ me to do that?"

“ _Yes_.”

“Just tell me the last way he touched you. And I'll—I'll start there. I’ll do that.”

Jared frowns. Richard’s hands move to his shoulders. He can feel Richard, through his jeans, semi-hard against his stomach. From him, from kissing _him_. Richard leans in and mouths against his neck, close to his ear.

“Tell me,” he mumbles.

“Fellatio,” Jared says, after a long moment. “He—Gavin. He gave me a blow job.” Somehow he manages to chuckle, a little. “A bit of a Hail Mary really.”

Richard squeezes his shoulders, digs his fingers in. It feels possessive. Angry again. Jared knows those kinds of touches. Richard shifts in his lap, and Jared expects him to be verbally angry too. But when he leans back, and Jared can see his face again, Richard is licking his lips, his cheeks are ruddy. He nods resolutely. “Okay. So that, then.”

He gets back on his knees, goes for Jared’s flies. Jared lifts himself up, feeling that his life has become overwhelmingly surreal, when Richard starts to tug his chinos and briefs down to his calves. He widens his thighs as Richard shimmies between them.

“You’ve done this? Before?” Jared asks, feeling hopeful.

Richard shrugs. He peers at Jared’s erection before wrapping his hand around it. “No, but fuck it.”

“ _Richard_ ,” he begins, intending to put a stop to all this, intending to say, ‘why don’t we just stick with kissing?’ Or, ‘lie down and let me make you feel good.’ Or, ‘you’re not even queer.’ But he cannot get the words out, he cannot make his tongue move or his mouth speak.

Richard, _his_ Richard, licks at the crown of his penis with the flat of his tongue, kittenish, tentative. Closes his lips over the head of him, and looks up at Jared from beneath his perfect, long eyelashes, and his absurd, wonderful curls, and brings his fist up to meet his mouth. Follows his fist on the downstroke.

“My god, look at you,” Jared whispers, hardly trusts himself to speak louder lest his voice break into a moan. 

The kissing wasn’t sloppy, but this part is. Unpracticed, unbearably erotic. He has to stop his hips from jolting each time Richard slides his mouth back up. He grips the chair arms, lets his head fall back because the sight alone threatens to force his body to its crisis. And god help him, he wants this to last. When his fantasies moved past frantic kisses, he always imagined letting Richard use him. Any part of him. His mouth, or his—he shivers, feels himself edge toward orgasm. Grips at Richard’s shoulder to push him off.

“Wha—”

He catches most of his release in his hand.

“Oh, oh _fuck_.” Richard wipes his palm over his mouth. He’s wide-eyed, shocked looking. “I don’t think I’ve ever made someone come like that,” he says, but then he smiles, close-mouthed, just a little bit devious, and his whole demeanor shifts into smug.

Jared _loves_ him. He doesn’t know what to do with his hand so he wipes it on his shirt, mentally apologizing to the fabric.

“No one knows what I just did,” Richard says, standing. He adjusts himself.

Jared reaches for his hips, heedless of his own nakedness, his bared, soft penis. Richard allows himself to be pulled close and Jared pushes up his shirt and hoodie, nuzzles at his stomach. He’s so soft, and so warm.

“Can I return the favor? Would you let me?”

“What would he have done?” Richard wonders. One of his hands finds its way into Jared’s hair. He tugs, so lightly. “I want to be different.”

“He never asked what I wanted.”

“What do you want?”

Jared runs his hand up Richard’s thigh, stops when he finds the hot line of his erection trapped behind jeans. “I made you hard,” he says, breathless. “I did that. I want—”

“What?”

“Richard, would you show me how you touch yourself? Would you... honor me?”

It feels like a new ritual when Jared tilts his face back, and slides down in the desk chair, guides Richard closer. It feels like a gift when Richard lets him cover his hand with his own and feel the way he brings himself off. It feels like a baptism when Richard stripes his face in semen, looking down at his own release, awed at its holy obscenity.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Jared.” He touches Jared’s cheek, his palm is sweaty. He slides his thumb through some of his come before pushing it into Jared’s mouth like he was born to do just that. In and out, in and out. And Jared, because he feels that he was born for this too, laps eagerly at him. “You’ll have to show me. Everything.”

“I will,” Jared says. He kisses Richard’s palm. “I want to.”

—

The only things Richard really balks at are panties and gags and panties-as-gags. But he has an enviable insatiability, like he’s been saving it up for Jared all these years.

And Jared figures they’ll get there. He takes solace in knowing just how game Richard has been, even through the trauma of becoming Pied Piper’s CTO. He feels he’s been a helpful outlet for some of that rage, and it suits him fine. The paler bruises suit him fine, they feel loving.

And If someone had told him, back at Vasser, that eventually he would end up here, naked in a Palo Alto swimming pool at 2AM, holding onto the edge, and being fingered with silicon-based lubricant (it stays slick, he’d explained), he probably would have said, “well, one can always dream.”

And afterward, he feels like he _is_ dreaming, back on dry land, reciting poetry to Richard who could care less about poetry, exhausted, and curled up nude in towels on the broken pool chairs. Everyone else is long asleep. He recites, “in my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went to the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations.”

Richard snakes a hand between his thighs and probes at him, where he’s still wet, open. “My _enumerations_?” He snickers as Jared gasps.

“Walt Whitman’s, silly.”

“That’s pretty gay.”

If the dragon showed up now, at last, Jared would tell it to take a hike.

“I’m gonna fuck you right here,” Richard says. “Show Walt Whitman what’s what.”

“ _Please_ ,” he says, before Richard is kissing him. The night air is cool and perfect on his flushed skin. “Please do.”

—

_Several weeks later:_

“I keep thinking about sending him a picture.” Richard giggles, impish and pleased with himself. “Like a little keepsake. Fuck you, I win.”

Jared is charmed. He shouldn’t be. He is. “That’s not a good idea. It could end up in _Code/Rag_ or—”

“But if I could, would you want me to? Would you want—him to know where you are? Who you—” he pauses, and Jared nods at him, encouraging, “who you belong to now?” He seems so thrilled with it all, with him, with _them_.

Richard pets at his hair, boxes Jared in with his skinny forearms. He leans in very close. “Would you want him to know?”

It’s such a clumsy play at seduction that Jared finds himself responding to it. He could swoon, if he were’t already lying down with his wrists bound up by an Ethernet cable. “I would,” he says. “I want everyone to know.”

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on [tumblr](http://reserve.tumblr.com).


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